"I've never been the type of girl who could just sit and play with Barbies or play video games. I have to be engaged," says Morgan, whose dream as a little girl was to become a marine because, "They're pretty tough and they don't take no for an answer!" alterna tv don-simmonds.co.uk

Morgan's lifelong aspiration was derailed because of her prosthesis, but that hasn't stopped her from working to achieve another of her dreams, becoming a biomechanical engineer.

As a high school student, Morgan used her personal experience and curiosity about biomechanical engineering to design an award winning science fair project, Prosthetics and Myoelectric Impulses in the Human Arm.

As a Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) intern, Morgan came to recognize how different and rewarding doing real scientific research can be. "In my science fair project, I had a generally good idea what my answer was before I started, but this [research] is all stuff that takes months, and you don't already know what the outcome will be."

Morgan's career path, once disrupted, is now re-crystallizing. "I want to do prosthetics and still want to advance defense technology, so I really hope to work for the NSA, because that's the highest level you can get serving the country without going military."